


Winter's Hunger

by SerialKillerQueen



Series: Difficult Girl(s) [20]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (Both brief), Action, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, F/F, Gen, Genderbending, Genderswap, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Steph is in the background mostly, Supernatural Elements, Truth, do not copy to another site, ships are not the focus, unbeta'd we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 15:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20819384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerialKillerQueen/pseuds/SerialKillerQueen
Summary: I'm death, I come to take the soul, leave the body, and leave it cold.Billie tells the truth, we learn why she and Max came to Hawkins.





	Winter's Hunger

**Author's Note:**

> Read the bottom note for clarifications! Stranger Things and its characters do not belong to me. Summary and bottom note are taken from 'O Death' by Jen Titus, cover by Amy Van Roekel. All rights go to their respective owners.

_Their plan goes wrong._

_Of _course_ it does._

_They had waited, all three of them lingering near the door and hoping it would go through the window, it had before, had dragged Nico through it and into the cold, had caused Maddie and herself to go running out after her._

_And it had, with a horrible shatter of glass it landed on the floor of the cabin, it's on all fours but it is still extremely evident how _big_ it is._

_Grey, almost white skin, too wide eyes, milky white like a cadaver's, huge twining antlers rise from it's skull, a long white mane of... hair? Falling across it's shoulders. On one side of it's face is half of a jaw bone, worn like some _decoration,_ its mouth is agape with horrible endless _fangs_ its unnaturally long arms end in clawed hands, and for all its height it's horrifically thin, like it's starving, wasting away._

_It's the most frightening thing she's ever seen._

_The plan is this; she and Nico stay as close to the door as they can, Maddie slightly further into the cabin, she'll pull the pin on the grenade (and they'll all pray it's still functioning), take a shot if she needs to, and throw it, they've already poured gasoline all over the floor, she'll get out, making sure Nico gets out too, and Maddie will follow._

_She stays perfectly still, holding Nico carefully to make sure she is as well, she doesn't _know_ that this is correct, but she thinks it didn't find her before, in the cave, because she was still and quiet. _

_It slowly stands up, on two feet, it's so fucking _huge_ but it doesn't lunge at them, instead it looks around in twitching movements of its head, sniffing the air._

_She remembers suddenly that Nico is _bleeding_ and then a deafening shot rings out, its head jerking backwards._

_And then it just _turns back to them,_ there's no blood, she thinks she can see the end of the bullet sticking out of its _fucking skull_ but it's otherwise unaffected, it lets out that blood curdling screech and starts to lunge forward and without stopping to _think_ she _pushes_ Nico at the door, steps foward, and slams the machete into its head._

_She knows on a rational level that it won't work, if a bullet didn't stop it this won't, but she also knows that Maddie was about to _die.__

_It turns toward her and all she can think is that now _she's_ going to die when another screech sounds out, it sounds slightly further away and there's more than one holy shit there's more than one of them -_

_A pale figure leaps into the cabin through the shattered window and directly onto the back of the first, it's definitely the same... species of creature, but this one's smaller, that's the extent of detail she can make out about it and she's not sticking around to try to see more._

_Nico had not gone out the door, but she does now, Billie's hands urging her, the fight is getting louder and louder, the two creatures tearing at each other fiercely, there's still no blood but she's pretty sure the smaller one is losing, they don't have _time.__

_She glances back one last time to see Maddie running toward the door as well, the grenade in her hand and she turns and _launches_ it at them. _

_She picks up her pace and is several yards from the cabin when - _

_Heat, boiling, suffocating heat, and _noise_ hitting Billie like a wall and knocking her to her knees, her hand scraping the frozen ground._

Mikaela is attempting to say that Even shouldn't have done what he just did, that they hadn't mutually decided to bring her into their secrets, but he isn't worried about that.

"Billie is good, Miki."

And that's all he has to say on the matter.

He trusts Billie, he has for months now, and Stephanie does too and that's enough for him.

Friends shouldn't lie.

Stephanie is starting to stumble over an explanation about experiments when Billie turns to her and inhales shakily.

_When Billie finally got home from the hospital (she didn't need to go, but Nico and Maddie had, between the scratches on Nico and the burns along Maddie's side and arm, and she wanted to check on them... to remind herself they were alive, all of them) Neil hit her three times, all three of which were with more force than he'd ever used before._

_She had barely reacted, because she was already scared, had been scared for the past few days (how had it only been a few days?) and was going numb from it. _

_She was scared of things far worse than her father._

_And she knew them still, felt the cold, the flames, heard that _screeching._ _

_She'd seen monsters, she'd seen nightmares, and they were towering figures, skeletons whose maws were filled with teeth, whose eyes were milky white and _dead.__

_Ice, snow, _screeching,_ darkness, _"Come... here."__

_Eventually she would come out of it enough to realize that Max had tried to run away while she'd been gone, and when he'd been caught he'd panicked and told Neil where she was in some attempt to make himself seem less guilty._

_Neil never liked her being around girls, he'd always suspected her after all, and now he knew she'd been gone to another _country_ with two of them. _

_The next day he told her they were moving to Hawkins._

"Do you know what a wendigo is?"

Even tests the word quietly, wendigo, is that what he sees in Billie's head? The tall thing that filled her with such fear? That wanted her and her friends?

Stephanie looks confused.

"...Wendigo?"

Billie gestures for them to sit.

She has a story to tell, and they will listen.

_Billie was breathing hard by the time they'd hiked up the mountain and arrived at Maddie and Nico's cabin (or their parents' cabin specifically, the advantages of being rich, you could _buy_ a mountain)._

_She was going to be in trouble for this when she went back, she knew she would be. She'd left a note for her father, letting him know she was spending time with friends for a couple days, which was true, but she'd left out that they were girls, one of them was notably older, and that they were going to Canada._

_Neil would never have let her go if he'd known even one of those things, much less all three. But he'd also not let her go _anywhere_ for a few days, he wouldn't even let her keep a lock on the door to her room. _

_She was going to be in for it when she got home._

_But she wanted some fucking _time_ away from him and away from her perfect little stepbrother and her useless stepmother, Nico and Maddie were the only friends she'd ever really had (and she knew that because Maddie was content to hang out with her little sister and her friend, she'd only do that if she liked them, fuck knew she couldn't stand being around Max any more than she had to), and she was curious, she'd never been hiking before._

_She was pretty sure she wouldn't go hiking _after_ this either, the cold was insane here, she was a Cali girl through and through. _

_Nico was chattering excitedly about spending the weekend here, Maddie occasionally joining in, she'd always been more subdued than her sister._

_Nearby, a wooden sign sways in the icy breeze._

_It read; "Blackwood Pines."_

**Author's Note:**

> _Won't you spare me over till another year?_  
I told you guys what it is outright now! I hope you've enjoyed this arc, it came out of nowhere and demanded to be written. I'm a sucker for "Billy knows about the supernatural" and I also knew that Steph was going to have to tell Billie eventually about the Upside Down, I decided to tackle both things. Billie of course always wanted to tell Steph, but unlike Steph (who can have Even just pick things up with his brain to prove she's telling the truth) Billie has no proof she's not bonkers.  
This was originally going to be the end of this arc however I think I will make one (probably smaller) fic to wrap up things, and to hopefully show more of a conversation with Billie and Stephanie.
> 
> (This is an Until Dawn crossover, all rights go to their respective owners).
> 
> Flashback clarifications:  
The first flashback in this is what happens between the first two flashbacks in 'Old faces old scars'  
The second flashback is chronologically the latest event to happen pre season 2, and what led to the Hargroves moving to Hawkins  
The final flashback is chronologically the first flashback, showing when Billie, Maddie, and Nico arrived on the mountain. (Also confirming that Until Dawn crossover).
> 
> Various inspirations for the wendigos' looks  
https://ferrebeekeeper.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sketch_wendigo.jpg  
(I'm sorry I can't find the original poster of this, I reversed searched and all the results I got seemed to be reposts, I only took minor inspiration from it in terms of the hair).
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/irenhorrors/art/Wendigo-718589046  
(Also mostly the hair).
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/aohmin/art/Wendigo-715866355
> 
> https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Wendigo_(Until_Dawn)?file=Wendigo3.png  
(And of course, the one that started it all, a lot of the functions of it I took from this, such as not being able to see unless you move, and the screeching to attempt to startle you into moving).
> 
> The credit for the "Come... here." Line is from Snarled's 'Something Scary' the episode about the wendigo! Listen to it if you want to hear what I imagine that one to sound like!  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1kbfumvd_4&t=
> 
> If you'd like to hear what the wendigo screeching in Until Dawn sounds like (THIS WILL BE STARTLING IN TERMS OF VOLUME AND VISUAL BE BRACED):  
https://youtu.be/rox11nM6WTw?t=832  
https://youtu.be/rox11nM6WTw?t=865


End file.
